April 2007 Archives

Regarding the QOTD, there is nothing at all reasonable about criminal charges over a school essay. NOTHING. One essay? Shouldn't there at least be a pattern? This kid is a straight A student that has never been in any trouble before. What is a "violent essay" anyway? How many acts of violence does a person have to write about in an essay to qualify it as violent? Are criminal charges being brought because the essay was written by a student? What if it had been someone else? A novelist, a journalist, or perhaps just "a man in his 50s"? We've had shooting rampages at schools, malls, fast food restaurants, post offices, and workplaces. Should everyone who might frequent one of those places be profiled? I'm a little disappointed in the Marines, too. All a recruit has to do now is be accused of something to be disqualified from service? Shouldn't they at least wait until the police matter is resolved before they say something like "“basically, he is no longer an applicant to become a Marine”? Whatever happened to "I may not like what you have to say but ... or innocent until proven guilty"? I understand the fear for our safety but I'm not comfortable with this. Our fears are getting the best of us. Is this really how we want to live?

Classy NASCAR fans throw things at Jeff Gordon because he passed Dale Earnhardt on the total victory list. To this day, I do not know what he ever did to them to make them dislike him that much. The man can race.

Quote of the Day

In light of recent events (at Virginia Tech), that is part of the context of what happened that makes the reaction all the more reasonable

Quote from said blog: "Recently we were asked by the Lords Science and Technology Committee whether failures of online security caused real problems, or were exaggerated. While there is no doubt that many people talk up the threats, here is a real case in which online fraud has done much worse harm than simply emptying bank accounts."

Brady Quinn should have stayed home yesterday. Having all of the ESPN cameras focused on him as team after team passed him by had to be excruciating. However, he’ll be playing close to home and he’ll make a lot of money some day if he can play at the NFL level. I have my doubts about that so yesterday probably cost him a boatload of money.

I offer one from the CrabAppleLane back yard this afternoon.

This is Priscilla and the photo was taken just after I had taken her for a late morning walk. She loves to walk with us but we need to prime her these days by picking her up and carrying her to the back of the yard. She also likes to stop before we're finished to prolong it. She celebrated her 18th birthday two weeks ago. She's still as feisty, cantankerous, and charming as she ever was and has developed a loathing of the camera. This is her "throw that damn thing in the pond" stare. She skulks away whenever she sees me with the camera and she proceeded to do so just after I pressed the shutter.

Good day for LSU Tigers. Four of them went in the first round of the draft. All of them were recruited by Nick Saban. That might explain some of the hoopla in Tuscaloosa these days. Alabama had 92,000 fans out for their spring game recently.

Saints selected wide receiver Robert Meachem out of Tennessee with their first pick. Hope he works out better than the last Volunteer WR they selected first a few years ago (Donte Stallworth). I was hoping for a defensive player but I like this pick, too. He'll be a good addition to the mix the Saints have on offense.

The cable company hooked up the internet at CrabAppleLane a few hours ago. This was the best service we've gotten out of them. Ever. Only down two days.

Quote of the Day

My yards after the catch is real important to me. I hate to get tackled by the first guy.

"Breaking News"

screamed the flashing headline across my computer desktop. What? The Supreme Court made a landmark ruling? A jetliner went down? Someone found Jimmy Hoffa? No. Rosie O'Donnell is leaving The View after just one year. Whatever you think of Rosie O'Donnell, is that really headline news?

And, finally, taking a family of four to a Major League Baseball game costs $176.24 (Great, very funny article). Relax, baseball fans. Costs quite a bit more to go to a NBA game and even more to go to a NFL game. When I gave up my Saints tickets back in 2000, I was out $190 per game before I walked in the door. That was just for tickets and parking and it was only two tickets. There are cheaper tickets available for all of those games, though. If you can find free parking (I think free parking is a myth), if you limit yourselves to one hot dog and one soft drink each, a family of four can probably see any game for about $100. You'd be very hard-pressed to do it cheaper than that, though.

Quote of the Day

I don't like the idea of a person walking down the street and shooting someone in cold blood just for exercise.

Quote from said blog: "Tomorrow, in case you hadn't noticed my sidebar, is Parental Alienation Awareness Day. Not that anybody who's ever been on the receiving end of parental alienation can really help being aware."

In Mississippi, where the Gulf Coast was hit just as hard by Katrina, the recovery is much further along.

Not at all the same. Katrina hit the mostly affluent, sparsely-populated areas of Mississippi and the storm was over by the end of the day. No levees failed and no water had to be pumped out. Can't compare the Gulf Coast with New Orleans. New Orleans is unique. If you look at the surrounding areas of New Orleans into Jefferson Parish and St Tammany Parish, the progress is similar to and maybe even further along than it is on the Gulf Coast. New Orleans would be well on its way to full recovery if not for the levee failures.

Quote of the Day

A 19-year-old suburban Detroit resident is on track to graduate from The University of Michigan after just a year of study.

Quote from said blog: "One of the most innovative coaches in college football over the past decade is befuddled by a phone or email (he doesn't use it either). So it is doubtful he reads the Bastards, damn. Luckily for him this coaching things seems to be working out as most other people have to give that new fangled technology a try at/for work."

The title is from the banter a couple of local DJs subjected their listeners to many years ago when "twofers" were all the rage. A "twofer" is a term radio stations came up with when they play two consecutive songs by the same artist. Not sure if that's the original use of that term but it is where I heard it first. For better or worse, it is now used daily. Anyway, these two local ding dongs went on and on about the intricacies of twofers and what they might have to do to "complete the twofer". I have no idea what brought that golden radio moment to mind this morning or why it's been stuck in my head for 20+ years but I'm sorta concerned about it.

Quote of the Day

Football is football, not life itself, unless of course you're a professional football player.

Quote from said blog: "I got the idea for the questionnaire below when the girl in the restroom stall next to me was jabbering loudly on her cell phone — in the moment. The tinkly little moment. Over the sound of the tinkly little moment."

Hated to see the gorgeous CrabAppleLane weekend come to a close. Hope it was as nice where you are.

I always thought these were wild gardenias but it turns out they're Chinese Privets. They’re all over CrabAppleLane and they’re just smelling up the place. I love them. They are similar in fragrance to gardenia but it's lighter and much nicer. I find the gardenia I planted in my garden bed to be overpowering. I didn't plant these. They're here on their own.

Mom and Pop Bluebird are feeding their hungry brood just about non-stop. Sounds like ten but it's probably only two or three.

Numbers 7 & 3 are lucky again. 7 for the number of runs the Red Sox scored in each game of their 3 game sweep of the Yankees. They came from behind in every game. I turned it on last night just in time to see the 7th inning rally. What a treat. That A-Rod made the last out last night was OK, too. Last night's game also featured four consecutive Red Sox homers in the third inning. That was earlier while I was still watching The Sopranos or Planet Earth. The Sopranos on HBOH, Planet Earth on Discovery-HD, and Yankees/Sox on ESPN-HD: Three spectacular programs in high-definition last night. Great way to close out the weekend.

Quote from said blog: "Although instant replay has its fair share of supporters and critics, it's here to stay in the NFL, and if you're hoping that the grainy SD playback that refs have to review might lead to a beneficial miscue, don't count on it."

We watched The Sidewalks of New York last night. This movie has enough moments to offset some of its other baggage. Brittany Murphy was quite excellent in this and all of the scenes with the interacting characters are very good. It has some very funny moments. Brittany's character was seeing an older, married man but she was also flirting with a younger, single man. How she seized a chance encounter with her younger suitor in a restaurant to turn the tables on her married lover was a blast. The baggage: The documentary, involving all of the main characters, is interspersed throughout the movie and it really doesn't add much. There was also an editing thing going on. It was obviously intentional but it really got annoying after a while. Still, we both liked it and recommend it.

I offer just one today from the backyard on this glorious CrabAppleLane Sunday. Continuing from yesterday's sighting,

Did you see the Red Sox uniforms last night in their game versus the Yankees? A tip of the cap to the whole Red Sox organization for that wonderful tribute. I didn't watch the whole game but wish I had now. Love that shot of Coco Crisp going over the wall. Sox rally, Yanks go down, Life is good.

A rare sight in the CrabAppleLane Backyard today:

A Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.

Warning: Movable Type Geek Stuff in this paragraph. Upgraded to MT 3.35 this morning. With every upgrade comes the hope that I might further reduce the “Internal Server Errors” that have been plaguing this site for about a year and a half. CrabAppleLane is getting about 5 ISEs per day in April. That’s way down from the 300+ per day I was getting back in November but it’s still more than I want. Hopefully, I’m getting two or three and the spammers are getting the rest. I greatly appreciate everyone’s indulgence and patience with this. Thanks.

138 days until football season ...

Quote of the Day

The Red Sox wore green uniforms to honor late Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach, with black "VT" patches in memory of those who died at Virginia Tech.

Quote from said blog: "I have been pondering my white screen of death (otherwise known as writer's block) and find myself daydreaming about remembering some whitty dity someone has said to me recently."

We finished watching The Magdalene Sisters last night. I’ve been wanting to see this film since I read about it at The Sheila Variations. This is not an easy film to watch. It depicts a world that is almost unthinkable today. The Magdalene Asylums were places in Ireland where "fallen" women were sent. The women were required to do laundry by hand all day in silence. In this film, the women were abused in every imaginable way by society, by the nuns, by the priests, and by their own families. There's first rate acting here. Crispina, played unforgettably by Eileen Walsh, is responsible for today's Quote of the Day and that particular scene where it is drawn from is overwhelming. Walsh doesn't have a lot of film credit according to IMDb. You would never know that from this Oscar-caliber performance. Even with the unnecessary epilogue (I think all epilogues are unnecessary), this is a great film. Not a popcorn movie, though.

Ferina is a relative newcomer in a town where any tenure under two decades leaves one vulnerable to charges of 'arrivism' when conflict arises.

We haven't formerly been charged with arrivism here at CrabAppleLane but that charge has been right on the tip of people's tongues while dealing with us on occasion. Madisonville is in St Tammany Parish as is CrabAppleLane. A substantial portion of the population of St Tammany, maybe even a majority since Katrina, is made up of people who once lived in New Orleans or its suburbs. There is a mostly unspoken tension between them and the longtime residents. Every transplant has felt it at one time or another. "Arrivism" conveys one side of it pretty well.

It started on a whim. Let’s see how many points I can get, let’s see what prizes they have, etc. So, I started collecting and entering codes from Coca-Cola. The wife drinks a lot of caffeine-free Diet Coke and I drink a coke or two per day so I thought it might accumulate if we had enough time. The 20oz plastic bottles have caps that are worth three points each and the fridge pack has a box top worth 10 points. It’s a pain in the a$$ to enter these things. They are 15 characters long and they are difficult to read, especially on the box tops where the ink has faded. In addition, the only thing in their prize catalog I thought worthwhile AND reachable are the AMC movie passes at 200 points each. Over 3 or 4 months, we were able to redeem the points for 3 of them. They were shipped recently although they're not here yet. Hope to be here on opening weekend.

Quote of the Day

Yankees fans are unbelievable. Their owner spends more than any owner in any U.S. sport, the team wins the obligatory World Series every now and then, and Yankees fans act as if the game was invented in the Bronx. It wasn't. It was just financed there, starting with the December day in 1919 when the Yankees bought the Babe.

Quote from said blog: "As I was heading up to do my early story yesterday, Sweeny from WFAN asked me what I would do if something happened on the field during batting practice while I was in the press box. I pointed out to him that from my seat, I have a perfect view of the field, so if something were to happen, I could be on the field in 45 seconds flat."

The camera-shyIndigo Buntings are still around but they never quite accept me in their presence like the regular CrabAppleLane birds do. There were about an equal number of Buntings and Cardinals on the ground and feeders yesterday afternoon. Along with the Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?), Chickadees, Chipping Sparrows, Mourning Doves, and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, there were 40-50 birds in view at all times through my back windows. It was a spectacular site. Would someday like to figure out how to photograph it.

If you haven’t seen last night’s episode of The Sopranos but intend to, skip over the next paragraph and the QOTD..

Spoiler alert: The last thing I expected in this final season was for Johnny Sack to die a quiet death in prison. These last two episodes are very strange. Last week, it was all Bobby and Janice. This week, there was no Bobby and Janice. And who's Doc Santoro?

Quote of the Day

You're my cousin, and I love you, Carmela, but I don't like what you're inferring here, either with the movie or how I treated Adriana.

CrabAppleLane had its three days of spring last week. We’re in full on summer mode now. Hot and muggy, then pouring down rain, and then hot and steamy. Glad we got the festival in yesterday. This was a good day to stay home. The sun came out for a few minutes a few minutes ago but it's gone again. There is one upside to it.

The tomato plants love it. Had to start tying off the taller ones. The eggplants are for Patsy. I hate eggplant. Once every five years or so, I’ll give a slice of batter-fried eggplant a try and I’ll be put off for another five years. Eggplant Parmesan, Eggplant Casserole, and Stuffed Eggplant will hit the trash can untouched.

The QOTD is from an article in USA Today. I agree with the quote but I totally disagree with him on the ending of Six Feet Under. What he objected to is what elevated it.

Quote of the Day

On TV these days, unfortunately, it seems to be a lost one. Seldom have viewers expressed more concern over when and where shows will wind up, and never have viewers seemed less willing to go wherever a show might take them. Unless we know where a story is heading, and are certain it will get there, we don't want to start the ride.

The Steamboat Natchez features a calliope and our performer entertained us with a medley of songs like Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey and The Association's Windy. He also knocked off a few that only locals would know. At the beach, at the beach, at the Pontchartrain Beach...

The Jesse Moore Band playing Swamp Water, LA. - French Quarter Festival - April 13, 2007

Short for this Friday the Thirteenth. French Quarter Festival gets underway today. Of the many, many festivals in New Orleans and Louisiana, this is our favorite. We’ll surely be there one day this weekend, maybe even today.

Ate lunch in City Park Wednesday. Always a treat.

Not sure what this is but it got the best parking spot. Click here for a better view.

Quote from said blog: "MR. & MRS. RICH: Brad and Angelina are buying a $270 million yacht. And then, once they finish adopting two babies from every country in the world, they’ll be ready for the flood."

The Saints schedule was announced yesterday. It includes 4 night games. It appears the league and the networks think they are finally ready for prime time. I think so, too, not so much for the human interest angle, which we’ll all be sick of after the first twenty minutes of every broadcast, but because the Saints have exciting players and play exciting, entertaining football. They close out the season against the Eagles and Bears. Kinda surprised the Eagles game wasn’t scheduled at night. The Eagles and Saints played two very memorable games last season. Probably more memorable for Saints fans than Eagles fans, though. Saints won both. :) I'm ready for some football.

Being a rock star, once a very lucrative profession, might not be for much longer. Not only are today’s music fans unwilling to buy recorded music, they’re pretty much unwilling to pay for live music, too. Ozzfest 2007, once a blockbuster music event, is giving tickets away. The music model is changing. I think bands and musicians will eventually have to start marketing their live and recorded music directly to fans. Some have been doing this for some time now but it has been, with some exceptions, a mostly supplemental effort. I think those efforts will soon become their primary means of revenue. The recording industry, the promoters, and outlets like Ticketmaster will object but those leeches are obsolete in the digital age. Music fans want to bypass them because there really is no need for them any more and as I said earlier, they are unwilling to pay for music these days, particularly perceived overpriced music, and said leeches don’t do anything the artists and their audiences can’t do for themselves.

As I got home tonight, I noticed a welcome sight in the CrabAppleLane backyard. There was a flock of Indigo Buntings on the ground, where Patsy throws seed, and on the feeders. There were 10-12 males, like the one pictured, and about 15-20 females. Daylight got away from me and this is the only decent shot I got. Hopefully, they'll still be around tomorrow morning and maybe I'll have a better opportunity. When they're on the feeders side-by-side with the CrabAppleLane cardinals, it's an amazing sight.

We’re down to the last episodes of The Sopranos. For what it's worth, I never watch past episodes of this show and I will never watch it again once it's over. More for what it's worth, I had the same feeling toward Six Feet Under. Not sure what it is about HBO series that I only care to see the first run. Six Feet Under had the best final episode I have ever seen. I thought it was even better than The Last Newhart and I didn't think that was possible. I hold out hope that The Sopranos will climb out of their mid-series malaise and deliver some good stories to close out but I'm not all that optimistic after Sunday night. About the show: I think brother-in-law Bobby realizes how bad he screwed up. I'm still wondering what happened to that Russian guy that Pauli wounded in the snow. There's friction between Tony and most of his family. There's friction between Tony and Phil, Tony and Johnny Sack, Phil and Johnny Sack. After 8 years, the series has enough pieces in place to bring it home right. Please don't let us down.

I watched King Kong yesterday. Finally. About a year and a half ago, I had seen previews of it at the theater and I really wanted to see it on the big screen. For one reason or another, it never happened. When it came to Pay-Per-View, DirecTV didn't offer a Letterbox version so I decided not to spend the $3.99 for it. I looked off and on for the DVD but it maintained its high just-released price so I held off on that, too. As I was surfing the high definition channels about a week ago, I came across King Kong and hit the R button to record it. This film has all of the elements that I like such as a big budget, an experienced big budget film director, a stellar cast, exotic locations, and an appealing story. What could go wrong? What I was hoping for and expecting was an updated version of the 1933 classic. Dino De Laurentiis failed miserably in 1976 to do this. I hoped Peter Jackson, a much better director, would be up to the task. Mr Jackson, this is a bomb. A 3:15 (Yes, three hours and fifteen minutes worth), star-studded, cheesy-special-effects-filled stink bomb. How cheesy? You could see the fake ship with fake smoke coming out of its smokestack, leave harbor against the fake New York City background. The smoke didn't change even though the ship was moving. That was 15 minutes into the film. The actors weren't all that bad but the script, which you helped write, and the special effects, which you directed, are lousy. The only good thing I can say about this one is that I'm glad I didn't spend any money on it.

Congratulations to Zach Johnson. His challengers were no match for him in the last round. OK, how many people had him winning The Masters?

Cold and dreary Sunday morning here at CrabAppleLane. Didn't freeze last night as predicted, though. Wasted an afternoon covering vegetation and a whole night worrying about the covered vegetation. Just one image from the backyard today. Quite obsessed by the two or three shots that got away, though.

While I was tooling around yesterday on Flickr (It was a slow day at work), I discovered my Canon PowerShot Pro1 is ranked 54th of 121 Canon cameras in popularity by Flickr members. Neat. But then, on the same page are a sampling of photos taken with the camera I use and I was quite embarrassed by the quality of their photos as compared to mine, particularly this guy and this photo. If you love great pictures and have a few minutes or hours to spare, explore his FlickR site. There are a lot of images there and you can just start anywhere. Amazing. When I first opened a free Flickr account, I wasn't all that enamored with it. I only joined so I could put one of those little badge thingies on the blogs here. I am now a huge fan. Here's another new fave I ran across yesterday just hopping around from one thing that caught my eye to another.

I've been recording movies off of the HD channel just to see if there's much difference between the HD version and the one I remember. High definition added some richness to Blade Runner and Full Metal Jacket but didn't do much for Body Double or Breakfast at Tiffany's, which is what we watched last night. I've seen this movie start-to-finish at least 10 times. I've also watched bits and pieces of it whenever I've run across it on TV many more times. It's always on some channel. I know this film as well as I know any film but I must confess this. If there is anything to get about this movie, I have never gotten it. One of the characters says about Holly that "she's a phony but she's a real phony". That really does about sum it up but OK, so? Despite the preceding blather, I like this movie. I still don't get it but now I don't get it in high definition and 6-channel Dolby Digital.

We're expecting temps in the 20s overnight at CrabAppleLane. I want to know who's responsible for this. I planted my tomatoes a little earlier than I should have but I'd be covering them tonight even if I had waited until the recommended date (April 1). We'll also be covering mirlitons, blue ginger, and a lemon tree Patsy got for Christmas from one of her work colleagues. There goes the afternoon.

Quote of the Day

I always thought it was a ridiculous name for a prison. Sing Sing, I mean. Sounds more like it should be an opera house or something.

Quote from said blog: "It had only been 12 days since the kids and I returned from our forced Virginian exile. I was still in shock at the condition of the city, and this event blew my circuits. But I consoled myself by saying it was a just a fluke."

The restaurants that serve seafood in New Orleans (Just about all of them) will do OK today as per tradition. Seafood on any Friday is a natural in New Orleans but Good Friday goes a little beyond that. I plan to find myself a shrimp po-boy somewhere today.

The Saints have started their voluntary offseason workout program. I guess I'll join the local talking heads on making too much out of this. One of them said on the radio the other day, "It's not mandatory but it is.". He said that because some of the stars had other commitments or "excused absences". Then his partner, a former star, said something like "You can't have rules for some players but not others". The former star should know better. There ARE different rules. They're unwritten but everyone knows them. In order of importance to the team, players 1 through 5 have a set of rules that says they can do pretty much whatever they want, players 6 through 25 have another set that says they can get away with some things as long as they don't make the coaches look bad, and players 26 through 53 need to do whatever they're told whenever they're told. The notion that something isn't mandatory but you really need to be there is ridiculous. but most of the 6 through 53 players are in and at least 4 of the 1 through 5 are not.

153 days until football season ...

Quote of the Day

Mailman, stay away from my door
Got too many bills, I don't need no more
I don't know what I'm going to do
But while I'm deciding
To save my soul, I'm going to find me a hole to hide in

Quote from said blog: "Before launching into the topic of Indian economic development, let’s consider for a moment the similarities and differences between India and New Orleans, a city openly joked about as America’s own Third World."

Blue Man Group is coming to New Orleans in a few weeks. There have been ads all over the TV for this show. Blue Man Group is a lot of fun in short doses. I loved their Intel commercials. Those were mostly 30-second and 60-second spots. When I watched them on a DirecTV freeview, which was an excerpt of one of their concerts, I was bored after just a few minutes. Theatrics will only move me so far. The music has to be there. I just don't think much of their music. Tickets run $50-$75 each. That's the going rate for mid-sized rock concerts today. In the days before expensive theatrics, most of the $2-$3 and $5-$6 shows I saw at The Warehouse in New Orleans back in the 70s were better than anything today's concert goers are seeing. That's too bad. If you never saw ZZ Top, Rush, or Foghat at the top of their game in a hot and sweaty dump like The Warehouse, you just don't know what Rock and Roll is about. :)

Quote of the Day

He was cremated, and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared. It went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.

Today’s Quote of the Day is from a piece at MSNBC but the FCC ruling was widely reported everywhere yesterday. I have a hypocritical thing about cell phones. I have one and I use it occasionally. I am not all that happy about everyone else around me having one and USING it. Nothing more pleasant than being in line behind a guy jabbering on his cell phone at a fast food restaurant, interrupting his conversation just long enough to give his order, making the server ask him everything two or three times and making the person on the other end of the phone repeat everything because he’s talking to two people at once and not hearing anything. Public cell phone usage ought to be like public smoking. You should not be allowed to do it around others in enclosed, confined spaces.

These days it’s impossible to get on a bus without at least one person hollering into their cell phone, invading the private space of everyone around them. That’s bad enough when one can get off in 10 minutes. To have to suffer through HOURS of such torture, with nowhere to go and miserably cramped conditions — someone is going to explode.

Quote from said blog: "How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane. - Newt Gingrich"

Congratulations to the Florida Gators. They have it going on in Gainesville. Back to back National Champions in Basketball with a Football National Championship sandwiched in between. Amazing. Word to Billy Donovan. John Wooden didn't need to leave UCLA for another challenge. Stay where you are. You're God in Gainesville. Since I mentioned football a moment ago, it should be noted that Florida's National Football Champions are also strong contenders to repeat. I'm a big fan of the SEC but Florida must be stopped. :)

Quote of the Day

They had four bodies running in at me. Chris Richard, I swear he plays on the football team.

Quote from said blog: "I met a woman I know in there who greeted me by name and then in traditional Swiss Villager style, looked me up and down to evaluate whether or not I was dressed properly*. She pointed to my flip flops with an eyebrow raised and asked, "Oh, is it already Summer then?""

With this rather dull entry, CrabAppleLane Blog got underway. Four years and a lot of dull entries later, it is still going. In four years, I've had some fun, made some friends, met some bloggers, and learned some computer stuff. I had no firm idea about what I was going to do with this thing then and no firm idea of what I was doing at all for that matter. That really hasn't changed. Thanks to all of you who have stopped by this little obscure corner of cyberspace for the last four years. It is greatly appreciated. Year five begins ...

Not a good weekend for sports at CrabAppleLane. First, Georgetown lost Saturday eliminating my pool entry from first place consideration. Then, UCLA lost eliminating my entry from any consideration. Yesterday, the LSU Lady Tigers were trounced by Rutgers. And, finally, the Cards lost the opener to the Mets last night to finish it off. Lovely weekend, otherwise.

The CrabAppleLane Blog is on a new database this morning. Hopefully, that will resolve some of my "Internal Server Error" issues.

Quote from said blog: "So, comments are open. Pimp your blog, please, or your favorite charity or post your great Aunt Martha's recipe for Opossum Stew. Whatever you like. You can even call me a dirty whore."

In the following three images, I present the CrabAppleLane Papa Bluebird. I was determined to get a picture of the lovely couple so I got up a little earlier than usual for a CrabAppleLane Sunday. Mama Bluebird came while I was setting up and went into the house. I took my eye off of the house for a few seconds while I got everything together. I waited with my finger on the shutter ... and waited ... and waited ... and waited for her to come back to the doorway. She didn't so I assumed she left and I gave up. About a half hour later, Papa comes and starts feeding her. He has to go most of the way in so she is sitting on the eggs in her nest. She's gorgeous, too. She has quite a bit more orange than her mate. She's not likely to come out for a while so a picture will wait for another day. Added the enlarge links this time just for fun. The focus is a little soft but I really like how the third one came out considering what kind of light I had on this overcast and rainy morning at 7:50AM.

I started recording Planet Earth off of the Discovery HD Channel. It is breathtaking. I prefer watching it from a recording so I can zip through the "pride of lions taking down an elephant" scene and others like that. I'm not really all that squeamish about them. I just don't care to see them. My favorite scene so far has been the Bird of Paradise doing his ritual dance for a prospective mate. It is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.

Quote of the Day

Hey little bluebird
How are you?
Is it fun to fly in a sky of blue?
Is it fun to sit and keep an eye on me?
As much as I enjoy to watch you in the summer breeze